Total file quota on Telegram

Telegram says that one can send files up to 1.5 GB. Does that mean in total or per file? If it meant per file, one could just misuse that as a backup service, right? One could pack up data in packets of like 1 GB, encrypt them and upload that to a chat with oneself.

Is there some official quota or would one just get a message eventually for abusing the service?

Indeed, it's meant 1.5GB PER FILE.
I guess there is either some kind of account storage limit or some limitations occurring when abusing.
But, still, no official documentation is available about this.

I have asked the Telegram support a few times about this, since I do indeed use it as a backup storage. Their answer was that there is no limit and they even advertise with it:

Store your media in the cloud.

Telegram has no limits on the size of your media and chats.

I have uploaded 2-3 Terabyte of data on Telegram and there was no limit so far.

You can do encrypted backups on Telegram clouds with PGPgram. It uses gpg to encrypt your files and lets you upload files of any size. From version 0.2 it even lets you backup YouTube videos and channels.